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Residents warn against Flock Safety AI surveillance; cite privacy, funding and legal risks

5601354 · May 27, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Dozens of public commenters urged the council to reject or delay a proposal to deploy Flock Safety AI surveillance, raising privacy, racial-bias, domestic‑violence and funding concerns and asking the council to redirect public-safety aid to victim services.

More than a half-dozen residents urged the Mankato City Council on May 27 to reject or delay a proposal to adopt Flock Safety AI surveillance technology for local public safety, raising concerns about privacy, racial bias, domestic violence risk, legal liability and alternative uses of available grant funds.

Multiple speakers said the Department of Public Safety’s proposal would use $130,000 from the 2023 public safety aid fund and argued that money could be better spent on victim services and prevention programs. "This money is coming directly from a fund that could instead be used for victim services," said a commenter who…

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